Chatham-Kent falls through rural broadband funding cracks

Thursday, December 17, 2015

by BETTER FARMING STAFF

A new federal-provincial fund that targets Ontario’s smaller municipalities is helping to improve broadband connections in some western Ontario rural communities but won’t be supporting similar initiatives in Chatham-Kent, says the municipality’s mayor.

Randy Hope, who also chairs the Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus, a group that unites the heads of 14 western Ontario counties — and Chatham-Kent — says his municipality doesn’t qualify for funding under the Small Communities Fund. The $544 million fund, launched in 2014, distributes cost-share funding to rural municipalities with populations less than 100,000 for infrastructure improvements, including connectivity and broadband.

In 2011, Chatham-Kent’s population numbered 103,671. The municipality, one of Ontario’s most rural, is the result of the 1998 amalgamation of Chatham with several smaller communities in the former Kent County.

Hope says his municipality already has a significant amount of fibre optic cable laid in the ground and he’s optimistic Chatham-Kent can trigger another funding program or develop a public private partnership program to complete the work.

He says because of its unusual structure and size, the municipality often falls through funding cracks. “We’re so accustomed to it,” the mayor says, and calls such challenges “opportunities to make things work.”

For years now, Ontario’s farm community has identified high-speed Internet service as a crucial for developing their sector, and it was also highlighted as a priority in a 2014 “Rural Roadmap” report by the-then Ontario Ministry of Rural Affairs. The report summarized the province’s rural programs and initiatives.

Indeed, rural Internet connectivity had featured prominently in the ministry’s 2014 report, which described targeted funding initiatives such as the former $29 million Rural Connections Broadband Program as well as the $55 million Eastern Ontario Regional Network and the $33.8 million Building Broadband in Rural and Northern Ontario initiatives.

Also announced that year was intent to pursue the issue by working with other ministries, local partners and the federal government.

But a 2015 “Rural Roadmap” report released last week by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs did not discuss the outcome of these partnership efforts, other than a general mention of the Small Communities Fund.

And when it came to the road ahead, the 2015 report did not discuss any new commitments or plans to tackle either rural broadband or other rural matters. Instead, the report’s final section merely describes the ministry as “providing a rural lens at the Cabinet table” and the provincial government as “strengthening relationships with rural stakeholders.”

Nevertheless, the 20-page report (which highlights government activities in areas such as rural health care, youth skills training and employment, infrastructure investment and rural economic development) has received mainly positive response from those who the province’s rural programs touch.

Hope notes some similarity between Western Ontario Wardens’ priorities and the report’s themes.

“The report talks (about how) we should be dealing with the roadmap in itself, and what we do with rural Ontario is to make sure the connectivity is there” for dealing with different markets, he says by way of example.

The provincial report mentions the launch of a Connecting Links program that will annually allocate $15 million to the construction and repair of the municipal roads that connect to the provincial highway structure.

Hope says the road connections certainly need to be improved. The Western Wardens, however, want the notion of connectivity to be applied to other components as well, such as public transit — and fibre optic network systems.

“Making sure the connectivity of our goods and services that we provide both locally, nationally and internationally, the connectivity needs to be there,” he says.

Neil Currie, Ontario Federation of Agriculture general manager, describes the summary as good.

“We tend to think that Queen’s Park might forget about rural Ontario from time to time, so it’s good to be reminded that there has been a lot of activity,” he says. “There’s still a lot left to be done, and I think some of the recommendations in moving forward . . . address that.”

He says the federation would like to see money flowing for natural gas infrastructure, and noted that the report mentioned the development of a natural gas access loan and a natural gas economic grant.

However, the programs were announced two years ago, he says, and as of yet, no criteria have been released for distributing the money — $200 million for the loan program and $30 million for the grant program.

“We’d like to see it go beyond an announcement and see some actual activity taking place with that program because that’s huge for us,” he says. “It’s right up there with the electrification of the last century.”

In an emailed statement Pat Vanini, executive director, Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO), describes the provincial report as “aspirational.”

“It announces good intentions,” she says. “Implementation is harder.”

Usually, need “is much greater than the Province’s resources,” and the province’s rural areas don’t necessarily have the same needs. Solutions, therefore, need to be flexible, she says.

In terms of agriculture, which falls under the rural investment section, the 2015 report refers to grant delivery from several agriculture-specific funding programs such as the Local Food Fund ($30 million to 163 projects), the provincial and federally-shared Growing Forward 2 business risk management policy framework and the $500 million, five-year horse racing partnership plan.

Also mentioned is the launch of the Food and Beverage Growth Fund, part of the 10-year $2.7 billion Jobs and Prosperity Fund, as well as investment through regional economic development funds. BF